▷ Differences between a gigabit and 10 gigabit network

In this article we explain the main differences in a network with a Gigabit connection and another 10 Gigabit. Depending on the specific characteristics of your environment, a 10 GbE LAN can also simplify cable management compared to Gigabit Ethernet.

Wanting to know much more about this technology? Do not miss our article. You will learn a lot!

Index of contents

Gigabit Ethernet (1 GbE) is the next development of the Ethernet standard beyond the popular 100Base-T version. As the name suggests, Gigabit Ethernet allows data transfer at speeds of 1000 Mbps or 1Gbps. It is particularly easy to install because the 1000Base-T variant is designed to run on Cat5 UTP (Unshielded Twisted Pair) which is widely and inexpensively available.

Initially, the 1 GbE standard was only used for applications such as trunking within large networks, but as the technology has become more affordable, it is being used more widely, and the 1000Base-T variant is often incorporated within the PCs themselves.

However, even up to 1 Gigabit Ethernet is being replaced, as 10 gigabyte Gigabit Ethernet is available and widely used. Despite this, the 1 Gigabit version will continue to be designed as a new product for many years

Gigabit Ethernet networks have been popular with small and medium businesses for almost a decade. For many, the performance of Gigabit Ethernet has been completely adequate.

More recently, however, the adoption of 10 Gigabit Ethernet has increased among smaller companies.

Gigabit Ethernet is struggling to keep up with the computing needs of the business, especially in virtualized environments. And, as the name suggests, 10 GbE is ten times faster than Gigabit Ethernet.

Historically, network performance exceeded that of server and storage. Designed to run many virtual machines, today's servers offer very high performance, and modern networked storage systems offer high input / output per second (IOPS) using high-performance and flash drives.

These hardware enhancements have pushed the performance bottleneck into the network. Therefore, to improve the performance of applications that need more resources, such as virtualization and backup, SMBs are opting for 10 Gigabit Ethernet.

Not so long ago, 10GbE was outside the budgets of most small businesses, but it's no longer the case. Today, affordable 10GbE networking equipment that meets the needs of small businesses is widely available.

There are a variety of cable types available that support 10GbE, varying in terms of cost, patch distance, latency, reliability, and backward compatibility. In the early days of the 10 GbE interface, users had to rely on expensive fiber-optic cabling, limiting adoption among small and medium businesses.

Today, affordable 10GBase-T copper cabling can be used. The standard 10 GbE can go through Cat5e cables, at least over short distances. For longer distances, Cat6 or Cat7 cables are required. Depending on the specific characteristics of your environment, 10 GbE can also simplify cable management compared to Gigabit Ethernet.

The demands of modern business applications, coupled with reduced cost of networking equipment, have created a kind of perfect storm for 10GbE adoption among SMBs.

The 10 Gigabit Ethernet standard is described as a "disruptive" technology that offers a more efficient and less costly approach to moving data on trunk connections between networks, while providing consistent end-to-end technology.

Like Fast Ethernet and Gigabit Ethernet, 10 Gigabit Ethernet uses full-duplex transmission, making a considerable range of distances possible. In multimode fiber, 10 Gigabit Ethernet will support distances of up to 300 meters; in single-mode fiber, it will support distances of up to 40 kilometers.

Characteristics of a 10 Gigabit connection

Here are some of the most important differences when choosing a 10 Gigabit network than a normal Gigabit.

• Less Fiber Usage: A 10 Gigabit Ethernet link uses fewer fiber threads compared to 1 Gigabit Ethernet, which uses one fiber thread per Gigabit Ethernet link. Using 10 Gigabit Ethernet reduces cabling complexity and uses existing fiber cabling efficiently, a consideration to be taken into account if installing additional fiber is cost prohibitive. Longer lifetime Deployment: 10 Gigabit Ethernet provides greater scalability than multiple Gigabit Ethernet links, resulting in a more future-ready network. Up to eight 10 Gigabit Ethernet links can be added to an 80 Gbps virtual connection. Compared to 1 GbE, 10 GbE has 10 times the potential of network performance, making it as fast as USB 3.1 and Thunderbolt 1st generation., which is 1250 MB (megabytes) per second of performance compared to the 125 GbE limit of the 1 GbE standard. There is a lot of data that can be moved from a storage unit, so high performance is the main advantage of 10 GbE. With 10 Gigabit Ethernet, transferring a large file will take less time than transferring many small files., because sequential read and write operations will always be faster. For sequential reads, this is about a 10-fold difference in performance, whereas for sequential writes, it will depend on the maximum write speed a device can offer, depending on the workload. And from what you're trying to transfer, you should see 4 to 10 times more performance when copying files larger than 10 GbE compared to 1 GbE. That is a significant difference in performance.

The guys at QNAP Spain teach us the performance differences between a Gigabit and 10 Gigabit LAN connection with one of their high-performance NAS.

What are the advantages of 10 Gigabit Ethernet

Gigabit Ethernet connection performance

Gigabit Ethernet 10 GBe connection performance

Speed is undoubtedly the dominant factor when choosing this connection. The size of the files is increasing. By the end of the century, it is estimated that there will be terabytes of data stored for each and every human being on Earth. No wonder we need faster speeds.

Since 10GBASE-T chips are capable of auto-trading at lower speeds, it will eventually be the only chip available for electronics and NICs (although some capabilities may be disabled by the manufacturer). It is much cheaper to make a chip for all things than to have several options.

Increasing the transfer speed by 10 to each new network standard may seem like an exaggeration, but since the migration to new network standards is much slower than for new processors or new memory technologies, for example, in larger steps they end up being necessary, otherwise, few would take the trouble to update the equipment.

The processing power of processors and regulators in general doubled on average every 18 months, while the cost remains more or less constant. With that, within 54 months we have 8x faster drivers, and so on, making the task of developing new network standards relatively simple.

The biggest problem is that the wiring doesn't evolve at the same speed as the drivers, forcing the committee to push popularly used cables to the limit before throwing in the towel and migrating to a more expensive and better quality cable standard.

An example of this are Category 5 twisted pair cables, which were originally developed for use in 100 megabit networks, but end up having their extended life with the 1000BASE-T standard thanks to the adoption of a more sophisticated system. modulation and the use of the four pairs of the cable. For this reason we recommend mounting Category 6 (Cat 6E) or Category 7 cables to have the 10 GbE connection covered.

The future of 10 Gigagit Ethernet

In the medium term, local networks will continue to be based on 100 and 1000 megabit interfaces and 10 GbE will be used to interconnect the network switches, avoiding the bottleneck caused by the use of a single Gigabit link to connect switches. with 24 or 48 clients each. This is the only way we will see the popularization of 10 GbE in desktops, perhaps long after the 100 Gigabit standard is in the implementation phase in backbone networks and servers.

The 10 GbE interface also represents the end of hubs, repeaters and half-duplex links, which were replaced by the exclusive use of full-duplex point-to-point links between stations, switches and routers on the network.. With this, the CSMA / CD, a collision detection system that has been used since the first Ethernet standards, is also no longer used.

5 things to do before upgrading to Gigabit Ethernet

It is important that you make sure your devices are ready to take advantage of potential new speeds. Here are five steps to properly prepare yourself.

Set up quality wired connections

Wired connections are generally better for Gigabit speeds due to their reliability and absence of interference. If you want the best benefits of the Gigabit Ethernet interface, you need the right wired connections. It is particularly important to order the cable connection from the internet modem to your router.

The good news is that most modern Ethernet ports manufactured in recent years are in the range of the Gigabit Ethernet standard.

If you have no idea what type of ports your router has, look up the product number and check the online specifications to see what type of ports it has.

You can also do this with your computers to check factory cards and connections. Everything must be rated for Gigabit speeds.

Finally, it is worth taking a look at the Ethernet cables themselves. They must be at least Cat5e or higher to support these speeds.

Make sure your devices are compatible with the latest Wi-Fi standards

If you are not going to use a wired connection on a particular device, check what Wi-Fi standards it supports. The official Gigabit-compatible Wi-Fi standard is 802.11ac, which is the code you should find when looking for the specs.

Your router must be absolutely compatible with the “ac” wireless standard. If it isn't, it's time for an upgrade, as older Wi-Fi standards will seriously bog down a Gigabit Ethernet connection.

Desktops and laptops that do not support 802.11ac can be easily upgraded with a USB adapter.

Set up the 5 GHz band of your Wi-Fi router

Many routers are now dual-band, which means they support the common 2.4GHz band and the lesser-used 5GHz band. That 5GHz option really shines in some ways. It may not have as much range in the original band, but there is much less “noise” in the 5 GHz. This means that the 5 GHz band can provide a clearer signal and help you get closer to those high Gigabit level speeds..

If your router is not a dual band router, consider replacing it. The router is also probably not compatible with 802.11ac, as most 802.11ac routers also support dual-band wireless technology.

Update firmware and operating systems

If your router has Gigabit Ethernet and a 5Ghz Wi-Fi band already set up and ready to go, you're in luck! However, you should check that the firmware is updated to the latest version, just to make sure everything will work properly.

You can check for firmware updates by logging in to your router's management console with the correct address. Once in the configuration of the same, follow the manufacturer's instructions to update the device. If you have turned on automatic updates, you don't have to worry about this step.

Take speed tests on devices to find weak spots

There are a number of effective online speed tests that you can run on both wired and wireless devices. Test your most used devices during the time of day when you are likely to use them.

Testing before upgrade will help you find an average baseline of your current speeds to compare with Gigabit Ethernet speeds after upgrade. Test again with Gigabit Ethernet, and analyze the difference.

What to consider to go from 1 to 10 GbE

The need for 10 Gigabit Ethernet (10 GbE) covers all markets and types of business. When IEEE began planning this standard in 1999, and even when the specification became a standard in 2002, it seemed unlikely that members could have anticipated the current connectivity environment.

Global internet traffic continues to grow exponentially, and many companies expect the data load to multiply by 10 years from now. The number of connected users will reach 3.8 billion and the number of connected devices will increase to 16, 000 millions.

Few companies will be immune to this load escalation. Today, virtually all new data centers are deployed with 10 Gigabit Ethernet. The real challenge lies with companies that are still struggling, along with the 1GbE infrastructure. What considerations should be taken into account when evaluating the change?

The 10 GbE requirement covers all markets and types of business. The question is which parts of the business will need it first.

The greatest need for bandwidth has been driven in data centers. In today's business, most apps don't need 10GbE, except perhaps for content creation (animation, video, high-end graphics, and more). Office applications still do not require more bandwidth than Gigabit. And the cost has not come down to the point where it makes sense for OEMs to upgrade to 10Gb on client machines.

Within data centers, cloud computing, big data analytics, and especially virtualization are clearly driving 10 GbE adoption.

Five, ten, or twenty consolidated servers on a single physical system will obviously test that machine's I / O capacity to its limits. In a way, an insufficient Gigabit Ethernet connection not only chokes a system, it chokes every virtual machine and every application within that system. Similarly, clusters benefit from 10 GbE.

How to have a 10 Gigabit network at home?

Having a Gigabit network at home is super easy, since in most homes they are already installed as a standard and your operator router comes well loaded with Gigabit Ethernet connections. But having a 10 Gigabit network until this year was out of the budget of 99% of users, and still it is somewhat expensive. But we have as an economic option the new Switch 10GbE QNAP QSW-804-4C. It allows us to choose between 4 Gigabit 10 Ethernet connections or through FFTT. Most commonly, we use these mouths to communicate with our computer or NAS.

It is also recommended to install Category 6E or Category 7 cabling which are two of the types of cable recommended for these speeds. At Amazon we have quite cheap 25-meter meshes with excellent shielding.

We already have the switch and the wiring. Where are we going to connect it? For example, a NAS system is ideal to get the most out of these speeds, since we can pass up to 10 times faster our files than the ideal connection.

QNAP offers great potential in high-performance NAS. The QNAP Ts-1277 that we analyzed at the end of June is one of the 100% recommended products. It allows us to install a 10 Gigabit network card such as QM2 expansion cards for M.2 and 10Gbe connection or a graphics card. In this case we will install a 10 Gigabit card to get the most out of our system.

When would this pack cost? We leave you direct prices from Amazon so that you value the investment.

QNAP QSW-804-4C Switch Unmanaged None Black - Network Switch (Unmanaged, None, Bidirectional Full (Full Duplex), Rack Mount) Switch Type: unmanaged; Mac address table: 27000 entries; Power over ethernet (poe): n 460.20 EUR NanoCable 10.20.0502 - Rigid Ethernet RJ45 Cat.6 UTP AWG24 network cable, 100% copper, gray, 100m coil Network cable with OFC conductor diameter AWG24; Resistance to flame spread according to IEC 60332-1-2 46.70 EUR Sumind 50 Pieces Conductor Cat6 RJ45 8P8C Connector Shielded for STP Ethernet Network Cable Modular Plug 14.99 EUR QNAP TS-1277 Ethernet Tower Gold NAS - Raid Unit (Hard Drive, SSD, SATA, Serial ATA II, Serial ATA III, 2.5.3.5 ", 0.1, 5, 6, 10, 50, 60, JBOD, FAT32, NTFS, ext3, ext4, 3.2 GHz) EUR 2, 594.80 QNAP QM2-2P10G1T PCIe Interface Card and Adapter, Internal RJ-45 - Accessory (M.2, PCIe, RJ-45, Full-Height / Low-Profile, Black, Brown, Stainless Steel, PC) QNAP QM22p10g1t. Host Interface: M.2; Output Interface: PCIe; RJ-45; Form Factor PCIe Card: Low Profile. Utility: PC. Color of Product: Black

Final words and conclusion about the differences between a Gigabit and 10 Gigabit connection

Now you can understand the basic components involved in the internet service that are used frequently.

With the growth in popularity of 10 Gigabit Ethernet (10 GbE) solutions based on SFP + (fiber optics) or RJ45 (copper), we are now seeing that this technology (which was previously only available to large companies) is increasingly available For small and medium-sized businesses at a much lower cost than before, and over time, the technology will also reach quality consumer products, desktops and notebooks.

We recommend you read the best routers on the market

However, due to the lack of quality 10GbE solutions for the end consumer on the market right now, the implementation of a 10GbE network remains cost prohibitive.